An apparatus and method for a base station to control a state of a mobile station based on a traffic condition of the mobile station are provided. The terminal operation control method includes controlling a terminal having ongoing traffic while the terminal is in an awake state, determining whether a pseudo awake timer of the terminal expires, wherein the pseudo awake timer counts a time for which the terminal in the awake state has no traffic, withdrawing, when the pseudo awake timer expires, a resource allocated to the terminal, and transitioning the state of the terminal to a pseudo awake state.